Whenever the news agenda hits hysteria point, Mark offers thoughtful analysis, a wry point of view and an insider’s insight

Latest ‘MARK MY WORDS’ Blog Posts

Imagine the fairy tale, the one with the young bored shepherd races into town day after day crying wolf. Day after day, until finally there is a wolf – and he, along with his herd, fall afoul. It’s a story with a famous message for all children, but it has another overlooked message. […]

Jessica Mulroney, perhaps the closest and most loyal of Meghan Markle’s inner circle has posted to Instagram citing racist bullies as behind the criticism of her friend. Sorry, but this is an example of the inner circle clutching at straws. It’s the Sussexes insistence on a version of privacy in an age of absolute scrutiny, […]

On April 7th, 1994, late at night, in a long-since rebranded Glaswegian hotel, a tape was recorded of two brothers that would launch the beginning one of the longest running and most entertaining rock n roll feuds of all time. The Wibbling Rivalry tapes, a drunken argument between the crown princes of rock n roll […]

It took half a century for us to work out that smoking had certain negative qualities, and it took another twenty years for the legislators to do something about it. Big Tobacco was a formidable opponent to change for several reasons. Yes, it was massively lucrative, provided thousands of jobs and sold an aspirational product […]

One of the minor, but depressing, changes to our society is that since Brexit, and the cultural and media zeitgeist got sucked into a political chaos-loop there is no part of national celebration that the zealots and partisans can’t ram their agenda through. Last week Dawn Foster, outrider for Jeremy Corbyn, criticised ‘centrists’ for basing […]

Barbie, in a way, is like dog food. Neither a small child or a dog can take either product to the till and pay for it themsevles. In fact, neither can reliably articulate what they want and why they want it at all. It’s an unusual marketing challenge – aimed at convincing adult humans, that […]

As the last litter pickers weave their weary way homeward from Worthy Farm, it’s time to take a long view on the talked about highlights. Nowadays, particularly in the media, cultural phenomena are often judged far more on its perceived moral worth than on its superficial entertainment value. Once upon a time, art was simply […]

As communication comebacks go, Vladimir Putin’s transformation from the man with a horse but without a shirt but to the all-powerful, all seeing bogeyman who stands at the centre of the forces sweeping across liberal democracies is a pretty good one. How did this man go from looking like a scuffed action man model, to […]

When an army sweeps the field of its enemy, it puts down its weapons and goes to the pub. When a political campaign annihilates its opponent at the polls, it pretends to puts down its weapons but almost immediately turns on itself. It’s in the politician’s bones to fight and to scheme up the ladder, […]

Although Churchill will always be known for his peerless rhetoric on all manner of subjects it is his political motto that his distorted descendants mimic. K.B.O. Keep Buggering On. Once upon a time that meant perseverance in the face of menace, or rout, or despair, but today Boris Johnson refuses to be curtailed or slowed […]

Trump’s visit reminded me of that old adage ‘money can’t buy class’. But it can get you close to it if you are President Trump, and in doing so see your approval ratings soar back home by quite a margin. With no gaffs or protocol errors in the UK this week, his standing in the […]

As a person with a blood pressure that I value, I try to avoid any unnecessary debate about Brexit. But as a person who lives and breathes communication strategy I am fed up with watching this one sided massacre. The politics of the right have always understood the power of the symbol. The eagle […]

So the royal baby was finally introduced to us within the walls of Windsor Castle at about the same time as Sara Latham informed us that the PR disaster surrounding the announcement was due to the failure of an email to send. That one is as old as “the cheque’s in the post” and nobody will believe […]

Back in the day, it was always the women who owned the fashion moment at the glittering award/fundraising events. From Diana Dors to Liz Hurley publicists knew how to grab the zeitgeist. Who can forget Gaga’s meat frock, or Cher and Bjork in headline-grabbing Oscar red carpet confections? Fashion has always had an opinion and leaned […]

Purpose is one of those buzzwords like disruption, innovation and ephemeral content that I try to avoid. I like to keep things simple though I will admit the thing that has kept https://www.borkowski.co.uk for the past thirty years is a singularity of purpose, and whilst of course we keep an eye on the future, our work is grounded in the present because […]

Everyone can see the media agenda speeding up to a blinding speed as it tries to keep pace with Brexit, screeching along towards its Byzantium, boring and terrifying ever-elusive finale. Everyone is talking about it, but I want to talk about what it actually means, and because Brexit is such an unusually elongated story, it […]

I have found myself struggling to write something about Leaving Neverland. Channel 4 provided an advance preview which proved to be four hours of unsettling weekend viewing. This is a dark and uncomfortable documentary about the peculiar world of fame. It’s not only painful but heartrending TV which will go a long way towards realigning our […]

To read Liam Neeson’s interview in the Independent – bewildering and alarming in equal parts – is to be reminded of the actor’s cameo in Ricky Gervais’s Life’s Too Short. This moment was a highlight of a largely forgettable Warwick Davis vehicle, playing off the idea of Neeson turning his hand to comedy. Pitching his […]

If you ever wanted to see an example of why it is so hard to manage reputations in today’s world of clickbait, professional outrage machines and judgements made at the speed of scrolling, then you don’t have to look any further than the recent media furore over the altercation between the students from Covington Catholic […]